Say Goodbye, Gracie!

So... the time has come to bid semi-public adieu to another friend. Just to warn you - this is going to be happening uncomfortably often and with increasing frequency in the next couple of weeks (but will be interrupted by my own, presumably internet-free, vacation). I am going to try to keep my chin up and remember the really fantastic times - and there were many - and to wish my friends the very best on the next legs of their journeys. However, please excuse me if my lower lip starts to tremble at the thought of saying good-bye to people I'd rather not see leave.

This next one's a colleague.
This is a rather businesslike picture of Tom, but it's one I think he'd like. Tom worked parts of this year with me in the office. The other parts of the year he spent being a "traditional" seminary intern in a nearby city (with a redline to J.S. Bach) with an actual German congregation, in a spectacularly complicated arrangement that nonetheless seemed to give him plenty of ministry experience.

Tom will be best remembered for his tendency to break into song - generally Lutheran hymns but sometimes Top 40 stuff, the Johannespassion, or whatever else happened to be running through his head - at completely random intervals, occasionally even in the middle of conversations. OK, sometimes it irked me, but often I found myself humming along. The office will seem empty (and quiet) without you, Tom. Good luck with your last year of seminary, and give 'em hell in rural Montana!